As the implications of Common Core are felt more and more by students/parents/families, I am asked more often than ever, “How do I start homeschooling?” One of the single most common questions I have encountered is, “What is the best curriculum for kindergarten?”

I don’t know why I’m so taken aback by this question. I could have asked it myself 20 years ago. But now when I hear it I have a strong desire to slug a tree. What are we thinking?

Perhaps the thinking comes from dolts like Rob Saxton and Jada Rupley who think there can actually be “sobering” results from kindergarten readiness tests based on, say, the number of letters or numbers a 5-year-old knows. Or maybe from dolts like Barrack Obama who are sure putting kids in pre-school (and probably pre-pre-school and…) is the solution for all the “sobering” problems of non-academic tykehood.

Pppphhttt.

Kindergarten children are five years old. We all know this, right? Outside of abusive or neglectful parenting (which neither this study nor the president was addressing) why are we being angst-filled about the academics of five-year-olds? [click to continue…]

It Is Not the Standards

Most people trying to combat Common Core seem to be focused on proving that the standards are bad, wrong, harmful, stupid, and otherwise nefarious. I think this is the wrong approach.

“Common Core standards” are not some magical, immovable, self-evident set of guidelines and goals that are time-tested and mother-approved. Rather, they are a set of tasks that are promoted mostly by people who stand to gain from their implementation and others who aren’t remotely conversant about what they are promoting outside of memorized rhetoric (see Utah’s District #12 school board representative Dixie Allen, et. al.)

The “standards” can change at any time. They can be moderated to quell the opposition or moderated to make the opposition powerless.

The Core Standards website has a page titled Read the Standards. It’s really an our-standards-are-awesome-sauce-even-through-we-cite-no-sources cheerleading page. (You know, because of academic rigor and all that.) From there you can go to a mathematics standards cheerleading page and a language arts cheerleading page. Which makes one wonder if the standards are so obviously keen, why so much promotion has to precede the actual presentation. But I digress.

The problem with the “standards” we are imposing on children all across the country is that we are imposing them on all children all across the country.

The feds are in control of the standards and the feds can change them at will. We are dependent on them because we are choosing to accept the bribe and all the conditions that go along with it. We all know that once we become accustomed to “free” money, we almost never go back. We will continue to capitulate to the demands made by the federal government to keep the “necessary” money coming in. And if we ever suggest otherwise, we will be accused of hurting the children.

In the supposed “reddest of all states,” seeing the money/power grab from Governor Gary Herbert, appointed Attorney General Sean Reyes, and other self-proclaimed conservatives is most disheartening. Your children are the sorry “benefactors” of this move and by the time it is repealed (if it is) the damage to their generation will be done.

The foundational problem with Common Core isn’t any particular standard on any particular day. It is giving up control of education to: federal bureaucracy; people, agencies, and companies with severe conflicts of interest; and people who are not and will never be accountable for the results.[click to continue…]

Question: Should I let my child go to a public school?

We’ve decided to homeschool this year, but my daughter is hearing all about school from her friends. Now she wants to go. What are my options or, better yet, is there a way to change her mind?

Answer: Yes, but you might not need to.

Grace Llewellyn, a homeschooling author, was attributed with saying the following,

If they go in, it will be with the freedom and the knowledge that it is their choice, and that they can just get up and leave if they want to. The knowledge that you have that freedom brings a whole different attitude to learning and to the entire school experience.

I would like to propose a question. With homeschooling being a lifestyle and not a matter of cutthroat school hours, what do you propose is the best homeschooling environment?

Any negative influence can affect a child’s ability to learn and love to learn. As a family we have chosen to focus upon the positive, uplifting, educational, and constructive versus anything negative or destructive. The areas that greatly influenced our home are the following: [click to continue…]

Utah Competency Testing

So I have been doing some research on competency testing. With my son academically advanced in math and beyond much of the Common Core stuff, I needed to see what options were out there. Others have wondered if they can bypass certain subjects they already have done and have them account for the “Utah” awarded diploma. Here is my understanding thus far: You can!

Granite School District testing center provides the materials also do the correcting of papers there. Here is the info. [click to continue…]

Utah proudly claims to be the reddest state in the union — meaning that we like to think we are more conservative than anyone on earth. But we’re not. We’re not much different, collectively, than the nearest progressive, voting in favor of more and more stuff that we want other people to pay for and grabbing greedily for our piece of the pie.

Education is no exception. In fact, it’s probably the best example in my state of throwing it all to government control. When the schools (and unions!) cry for more money, Utahns fall all over themselves to get it for them.

More than bewildered by Utah’s repeated willingness to give up freedoms for messes of federal pottage, I decided to go straight to the horse’s mouth. On August 31, 2013, I had an enlightening — entirely because of its lack of content and transparency — email discussion with Dixie Allen, Utah’s District #12 school board representative. Mine.

Interchange #1

Smith

Hello:

I am in District 12 and want to know your position and voting record on Common Core.

Massachusetts is one of several states that wants to keep penmanship as part of the curriculum. A few hours ago a Facebook friend asked if others thought cursive should be kept alive.

My answer: No — unless you have nothing more important to do.

In my experience, cursive is one of those sacred cows that people hold onto because the affinity for the past overrides actual cost/benefit analysis of possible educational options.

Resources — particularly time — are limited. I have shelves of truly amazing, awesome things I’ve always wanted to do with my kids, but haven’t had the time to complete. Items, I fear will end up being passed on to some lucky family, completely unused, when Caleb graduates from our homeschool in eight short years. Things like intermediate logic courses, spherical geometry, or intense geography.

I just don’t care about cursive. Particularly nonsensical D’Nealian! Why should capital Zs look like Ys with a loop? Why should Gs and Zs and Ss look like nothing at all? Who got to decide that nonsense?

The joy of homeschooling in its purest form, is that you do not have to bend to anyone’s core or curriculum. And you certainly don’t have to take any state mandated tests here in Utah as of yet. As a parent, you can control what you expose to some degree to your children. You set the scope, the sequence and the assessment.

Someone asked why I would want to be involved with the new state assessment process. To be honest, I have asked myself this very question. Truth be known, when my children were younger we were home schoolers in the purest sense of the word. We had so much fun traveling and experiencing learning. As they grew, I needed additional resources to make sure they could reach their potential and thankfully the Utah system provided some of those resources.

I could not provide a chemistry lab or the upper maths for my older child in a timely manner and meet the needs of my younger children. Finding private tutors was extremely difficult and the public school system already had the courses with some great educators. I am what some parents would consider a dual enrollment parent. I am very eclectic in my approach to homeschool and would consider myself an opportunist seeking the right mentors for my children. As a result my children will be subject to the state testing in one way or another.

With the new FERPA laws and the ability to track data, I felt it imperative that core knowledge was tested without the social agendas. A proper test would include facts and not any of the controversial, subjective, social, or the psychosomatic testing. If USOE or our school system is to be trusted, it is imperative to remove all items related to any social agenda or touchy feel stuff and stick to the factual knowledge. We have enough factual knowledge; we don’t need any of the extra stuff.

15 parents were chosen to review the test. Those selected will have the opportunity to serve on this panel for the next two years and others will serve four. I have chosen to serve four years. This group of individuals are a thoughtful, concerned, and a strong bunch. The test was divided amongst the 15 of us. Each 1/15th was divided into 4 batches consisting roughly of 660 questions. I personally reviewed 9 batches. Out of the 10000 questions reviewed, only approximately 600 had concerns. Relatively a small number. Those concerns ranged from content, grammar, functionality and more. In the 9 batches I was able to review, I only saw two questions that really rubbed me wrong. I presented my concerns to the group and we discussed better solutions and helpful comments.

We were asked to sign a confidentiality agreement where we could discuss the test but not the core content questions outside of our time there. So you will not find any content of the test here. If it is in the core then it is probably on the test. [click to continue…]

Let’s just get this out of the way right up top. The vast majority of people can homeschool. They just don’t want to. And the vast majority of homeschoolers don’t care.

Debating a 6-Year-Old

I was a 30-year-old college graduate and mother of three (6,3,1) with a desktop publishing home business when my precocious (and verified “gifted”) oldest daughter began harassing me to homeschool her. I countered with the “facts” that all homeschoolers are freaks and weirdos, that she would have no friends, that I didn’t have the time or temperament, and everything else you can imagine.

She won.

Then I had to figure out what in the world to do.

Generational Brainwashing

After much thrashing about and many sleepless nights — and actual research and practice — I came to the realization that we have all been brainwashed. (Myself included, as anyone who knew me pre-homeschooling can attest.) With combined forces of the NEA and other state and local teacher’s unions, government bureaucrats and layers of bureaucracy, level after level of administration, teachers themselves, and anyone else with livelihoods and power bases dependent on the government education system, we have been taught for decades that we can’t educate our children and that we need “experts” to tell us what is best and what must be learned.